On My Radio

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Sitting under a pop up today, in the pouring rain at Warner Ranch when a message from Christian Holm popped up on my email with a good idea, or so I thought. He asked me to start this because he feels his command of the english is a bit weak. He probably asked the wrong guy to do this as my english is dodgy at best. But...

The idea is like "Who I am today", but discussing the music in your life as a window to ones personality and how it influenced you in any way shape or form. I hope I am expressing his idea right. Why not, seems fun enough for a rainy day in Hollywood.

Music has always been a main ingredient and love in my life. My father loved the big bands and swing music, so this is the 1st music I heard as a child. Growing up in the 50's n 60's in Southern California, rock and roll and surf music and Motown were on every radio in my world. I so loved it that I took up drums and formed a neighborhood garage band when I was 10. We weren't alone in Fullerton where I was born. This is the city where Leo Fender and his guitar and amp company "Fender" was started. We may of been the 3rd best band out of 9 or so bands that we knew of in town. We played at the Teen Center, Country Club, YMCA, the frat house at CSF, Sunny Hills H S and anywhere we could get a gig. So much fun to play for people after endless hours of rehearsal in our basement. I learned much about sound and even more about life and people. Looking back I can see that this was the seeds that grew into my chosen profession.

I have been to many great concerts over the years and may post a list someday. I listen to all types of music today and I am always looking for new bands to enjoy. I have a small project studio and record bands and singer/songwriters all the time in what little spare time I get. I still play the drums and my band, "Pappy n da Pacemakers" are now the 103rd best band in Fullerton.:-)

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My mother loved musicals. Gilbert & Sullivan was also big in my life when I was a kid. I was fortunate enough to go to lots of real live theater (My Fair Lady, Music Man, Bye Bye Birdie, Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma, Wonderful Town, The Mikado, Iolanthe, and just about every other Gilbert & Sullvan operetta), and also see the movies (of many of the above) and ALL the singing and dancing movies (I wanted to be Fred Astaire or maybe Gene Kelly); I remember the first day it rained in Chicago in 1952 and I raced outside and sang all the words to "Singin' in the Rain" on the sidewalk outside my house.

The first 45 I bought on my own was "Get A Job" by The Silhouettes. The whole "yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip boom boom﻿ boom boom boom boom Get a job" lyric reminded me of Danny Kaye, another one of my childhood favorites.

Very much affected by folk music in the late 1950's and early '60's, my father listened to the Weavers, Woodie Guthrie... I listened to Bob Dylan, Joan Baez... and of course lots of rock and roll.The real connection, music and movies, came when I worked on "Harold and Maude" with Hal Ashby. Hal knew early on that he wanted Cat Stevens' music in the movie and one of the things that I did on that movie (I was not yet doing sound, I was in the Art Department) was to play songs like "Trouble" over the MOS dailies sent up by editorial to San Francisco where we were shooting. Hal never wanted to see a piece of film without sound --- I was sort of pressed into service as the "dailies DJ", playing my Cat Stevens records on a little portable Singer record player patched into Billy Brasier's location projection system. Maybe that does qualify as my first "sound job".

I now love almost all music, even some contemporary rap (knowing that it has roots for me in Woodie Guthrie's talking dust bowl blues) and have been fortunate to work on many movies that have had music at their core. I am still more profoundly affected by a piece of music than by almost anything in any other medium (reminded again the other day when Carol and I watched "Coming Home" and Tim Buckley's haunting "Once I Was" plays over the last scenes of the movie).

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Although I love music and come from a musical background, I probably can't name albums or band members of most of my favorite music. I love the art, but don't feel the obsession to know the artist.

My mother and grandmother were both accomplished piano players, and could play almost anything by ear straight away. My grandmother rarely played, however. My mother wanted to be a singer, but the compliant child of a pair of lawyers went to Columbia, got married and had children.

I grew up singing Elvis tunes to my mother. I remember when my voice broke, and going from having trouble hitting the low notes to having trouble hitting the higher ones.

The first record I bought with my own money was a Gary Glitter album. 1970's in the UK.

The Beatles and John Lennon played a big part in our house too, as did The Rolling Stones and Elton John. My mother exposed me to Barry Manilow and Johnny Mathis too. I can't say I enjoyed either too much, but I have to confess to happily singing along to Barry Manilow records my mother played. The dreaded Johnny Mathis Christmas album sent us running every year all the way through adulthood. I follow that tradition by pulling out my Elvis Christmas album every year.

I discovered a Bad Company record in the attic of the home we were renting in about 1982, and must have deepened the grooves on that vinyl for sure.

I went through a HUGE Doors phase my senior year of high school (1986).

If I were to identify some of my favorite music which I have consistently enjoyed over the last 25 or so years as a music buyer, I would probably go with...

0) Elvis

1) The Rolling Stones

2) Metallica

3) Red Hot Chili Peppers

4) Led Zeppelin

5) Beatles

6) Stevie Wonder

7) Marvin Gaye

Paul Simon (with and without Art)

But all in all, I like just about any kind of music, and have enjoyed periods of listening to country, hip hop, rap, show tunes, classical, and "regional" music from around the world.

Robert

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1958... Rolling through the bean n tomato fields west of Fullerton that were about to explode and become the "OC" with my family and I in our 57 Chevy Bel Air station wagon. The radio was always up and my siblings and I loving my dad singing along w the 'Big Bopper' on "Chantilly Lace", or Richie Valens on "Donna". All of these sweet sounds transmitted on KFWB, channel 98, color radio... It's summertime and my family went to Huntington Beach every Sat n Sunday. Lifeguard station #5, south of the pier. We fried in the sun as 100's of transistor radios played the sounds of the day. Proximity effect every step of the way from the snack bar to the waves. I can still hear it, almost smell and taste it. For me, the energy of my life was matched to the sounds of those days completely. Still is and hopefully this continues to be so. I think ones love for music is tied to the times it makes you feel. It is the soundtrack to our personal timelines. Viva la music and the radio stations we all own.

CrewC

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I grew up in a house where music was present all the time. I remember my parents used to listen to any music. Beethoven, Shostakovich, Miles Davis, Jacque Brel, Edith Piaf or Argentinian tango or Argentinian zamba and being a Chilean folclor groups as Quilapayun and Inti - Illimani. I was 11 years old when I saw "The Wall"...and that was it. I started listening to Pink Floyd, Beatles and then to Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeath, AC DC, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Bob Dylan, The Who, Rolling Stones, The Doors, Janis Joplin, Radiohead and in some point I even started buying movie soundtracks with a classical aproach.

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Yeah, there was always music playing in my house. My father was a huge jazz fan, and played Duke Ellington, Bennie Goodman, Glenn Miller, and Artie Shaw, which I remember vividly from the late 1950s/early 1960s on; my mom liked pop vocals and showtunes. Once my younger sister and I grew up, we assumed control of the family stereo (actually a mono Magnavox "gutless wonder" console, as my father called it), and started playing Beatles non-stop in 1964. I eventually figured out tape recorders at the ripe old age of 10, and had a love affair with technology ever since.

Many major hits that came out in the 1960s and 1970s kind of became the soundtrack to my life and became embedded in my DNA. It's always cool to hear a song from that era and flash back to exactly where I was when I first heard them. It makes you wonder if "these kids today" (said in a wheezy old man's voice) will have the same kinds of memories 40 years from now...

--Marc W.

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It's always cool to hear a song from that era and flash back to exactly where I was when I first heard them. It makes you wonder if "these kids today" (said in a wheezy old man's voice) will have the same kinds of memories 40 years from now...

--Marc W.

Cameron Crowe always talked about the "Theory of Definitive Listening" which says that every piece of music has the power to transport you back to one definitive time and place in your personal history, complete with all the thoughts, feelings and sensations you had at that moment, and this little bit of time travel is profoundly rich and real... and it is not necessarily a trip back to the first time you heard a song but it is a trip to this specific moment that you will take everytime you hear the song.

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Kevin, I believe you. It is a great song that I have many fond memories of it myself. I have even seen the 'Stones' perform it 4 or 5 times. This however is my favorite version and it takes me back to my days at USC when I was a college kid dreaming of getting into film.

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I love Leon Russell. Great song writer and incredible voice. I had the fortune to do sound for him a few times as a solo performer in the 80s. Just him and his electric keyboard. At first he burst my bubble by not being very friendly or interactive with anyone. Not even with the audience during the show. When he wasn't performing he just stayed in his toured bus the whole time. His road manager did the sound check with me. It was not too long after that I heard a wonderful interview with him on NPR. He came across as a really warm and thoughtful person. It turns out that he has agoraphobia and that he is really uncomfortable and becomes unsocial in many performance situations. It was good to have another reminder why not to be so quick to judge people.

Andy

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Cameron Crowe always talked about the "Theory of Definitive Listening" which says that every piece of music has the power to transport you back to one definitive time and place in your personal history, complete with all the thoughts, feelings and sensations you had at that moment, and this little bit of time travel is profoundly rich and real... and it is not necessarily a trip back to the first time you heard a song but it is a trip to this specific moment that you will take everytime you hear the song.

- Jeff Wexler

I was in Bangkok in 1995 for a week working on a documentary. One night, after a day's shoot, the director, the DP and I went out on the town. We ended up on very busy commercial pedestrian street; lots of stands selling crap to tourists, some nicer shops selling handmade crafts, and a lot of gentlemen's clubs.

As I waited for the DP and director to return - the DP was negotiating a cheap Tag Heuer and the director was shopping for a string puppet - I sat and took everything in. The smell of the street food, the people, the sounds. Across the way from me was one of those clubs. The front was open to the street. They had a boxing ring set up, and two young girls with oversized gloves were fighting it out. Young, but worn out looking.

Over a speaker came Joan Osborne's "One of Us".

"What if God was one of us, just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on a bus, trying to make his way home".

I was an atheist in 1995 and still am today. I don't consider myself a spiritual person. But on that one night, for those 4-5 minutes, it felt like everyone on earth was the same.

Whenever I hear "One of Us", I'm in Bangkok in a second.

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Man I enjoyed listening to Leon. And what a great mix! Ringo and (I think) Jim Keltner on drums and Eric playing a honking great Gibson semi. Billy Preston looks like, on Hammond. I'm sure Bobby Keyes is in there somewhere too.

I saw Leon on this year's Grammy show and sadly he was a shadow of his once glorious self. One of my all time faves and I always thought of him as the best/worst voice in rock n roll. I have a great story from the 70's about Delaney and Bonnie, Leon and Eric in Olympic Studios in London. Let me know if you want to hear it and I'll dust of the memory banks.

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BTW, I saw Leon n Joe Cocker in the Mad Dogs n Englishmen tour in Arizona in 70 or 71 when I was a freshman at ASU. The band that did "Green Eyed Lady" opened for them. That year out there I also saw BB King at a theater in the round and Chuck Berry at a great bar in Scottsdale called "J D's". Waylon Jennings was the house band, so that says it all IMO. All huge influences on my young self. We are all 'Strangers in a Strange Land', but we are all brothers, n sisters, and cousins when it comes to music. Peace.

CrewC

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OK Here goes. It was 1974 or thereabouts and I was in Olympic studios in Barnes, London, recording an album with a band called Fynn McCool. (google if interested) We were in studio B which was the smaller of the two studios, "A" being a large stage suited to orchestral setups. Anyway, we ran out of Rizla cigarette paper, very popular in those days for rolling....

I was appointed paper procurer so off I go to studio A to see if anyone is recording there. I enter the studio and it's empty, although all the lights are on. I was about to give up on my acquisition of aforementioned essentials for herbal stimulation when I notice the lights on in the control room window which overlooked the stage. But it was weird because it was opaque, I couldn't even see the light fixtures inside.

Nil desperandum says I, and intrepidly made my way up the stairs leading into the control room upon which door I knocked in fine fashion. I hear a very subdued and throaty "yeah?!" upon which I opened the door.

This action allowed the escape from the room of the most pungent, thick and aromatic cloud of hashish smoke to waft all around me from which I later suffered enjoyable consequences. When said waft of haze had dissipated to a degree that I could see into the room, I saw to my incredulity the entire Delaney and Bonnie band, Leon Russell, Eric Clapton and it may have been Rita Coolidge all sitting on the floor of the control room enjoying a "break" from recording. I stammered and stuttered my way through a request for cigarette papers which flew at me from some quarter of the room amid the collective enjoyment the musicians were deriving from my star-struck demeanor. I walked back to the band in studio B and it was quite a while before i was able to recount that I had met 90% of my rock n roll idols in one room in one day!

Just as an aside, Deep Purple used to record in Olympic and instigated the stoned "Olympic" event of "afterburning" which was the ability to run around the perimeter of studio A as many times as you could with a lit copy of "Melody Maker" jammed into the back of your pants! It's a wonder we ever survived past the age of twenty five.

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The 1st concert I paid money to see was the Byrds in late 66 at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach, just across PCH from the peer. I was 15 and needed a ride to get there and I remember being afraid of the age limit to get in. It was my 1st of many trips to the 'Bear'. Great show. Really thats what it is all about. Many sweating strangers being in the moment, one with the beat, melody, voice, and stomp of the crowd. Love it live as well as 'On my Radio'....

CrewC

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In the fall of 1966 my band mates and I played our 1st gig at the Red Barn. This was a frat house at Cal State Fullerton that was an old barn at the edge of a orange grove next to the school. We were 14 n 15 years old and couldn't even drive, so my dad loaded up the Chevy station wagon with our gear and took us there. It was a warm Thursday night as the Santa Anna winds were blowing and we were pumped up. This was so much cooler than playing the roller rink where the Rubber Band 1st got paid. I don't know what my dad was thinking, but the guys were drinking beer like it was water and it wasn't even dark yet.

When we played we always played 3 songs from a group and then 3 from another and so on. We always started with the Stone's "Get off of my Cloud", then "All over Now", and the "Around n Around"... We would then do the Yardbirds version of "I'm a Man", "For your Love", and "Heart full of Soul"... We never did the Beatles because we couldn't sing that well and their songs were harder than the 3 chord progressions we were capable of.

This night started out the same, but after "I'm a Man", this drunk lug who had to be 350lb's took our main mic and wanted us to do "Gloria". Well this was our finisher so we knew it alright, but no one was about to tell this dude no. So we did it as he slaughtered it, but like all drunk karoke singers, thought he was great. Then he wanted "Louie Louie", so we played it. Then "Gloria" again. Finally he went for another beer and we went on with our set. Well he came back every 20 or so minutes and We/He did Louie Louie n Gloria. Must of done this 6 times over the night. We never took a break. By the time we quit, my ears were ringing and I never wanted to play those songs again.

My dad was outside as we loaded our gear and here comes Bluto the drunk and he stars telling my dad how good we were and how cool he was to let us play as he took a leak in the bush's the whole time we loaded up. Seemed like 5 minutes or longer that he pee'd. That feat alone is what we talked about for months. We learned much that night, but mostly to give the people what they want.